


The Promises (We) Exchanged

by Rethira



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, M/M, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-26
Updated: 2013-01-26
Packaged: 2017-11-27 00:20:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/655967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rethira/pseuds/Rethira
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lyon dies; Knoll resets the timeline.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Promises (We) Exchanged

**Author's Note:**

> For my "time travel" square (and at the behest of my very good friend, Raphiael).

The first time, Lyon is cast aside – the Demon King takes a different, stronger body. The Emperor rises from his seat with a maniacal gleam in his eyes, his sickness gone. His eyes rake over the room – he pauses at Lyon and says, “Remove him.”

Knoll does his best, gathering Lyon into his arms and dragging him to the safety of his chambers. But Lyon’s breath is painfully shallow, and there is blood on his lips. He opens his eyes but once, and that’s towards the end. He doesn’t seem to see Knoll, and when he opens his mouth, nothing escapes but a sad croak before he passes out again.

Lyon doesn’t die until three days later. The Emperor does not visit in all that time, and when Knoll comes to announce the death, he is turned out before he can even say a word. The Emperor is more concerned with his new generals than with the death of his son – it falls to Knoll and a handful of priests to spread the word of Lyon’s death, and even then, that is ended when he is thrown into the gaol and left there to rot.

Prince Ephraim is severe when he arrives, and he takes the news of Lyon’s death with no little anger.

“We ride to Jehanna,” Ephraim commands, and Knoll sees no reason to stay.

He finds the tome in the ruins at Lagdou, buried in a cache of skulls and femurs. Prince Ephraim and Princess Eirika have pressed further inside the ruins, along with much of the army. Knoll has neglected to follow them, and now he is glad for it. The tome radiates power, and the words on its pages are unlike any other he has known.

They feel right when Knoll says them, heavy but good and true words. Darkness builds around him, sapping his strength – but then it snaps and he is back in Grado, bent over a table in the library and the tome rests before him.

The second time, Knoll slows Lyon just enough to ensure he survives this first trial – the Emperor is dead before Lyon can release the seal on the Stone, and the dark power held within remains with Lyon. The Emperor’s corpse is imbued with life, but it is false life, and it does not keep the pallor from his skin, nor the rigidity from his movements.

Lyon still has Knoll imprisoned – “For attempting to flee,” he snarls – but when Knoll is freed this time, it is before Prince Ephraim’s arrival.

“You will accompany us,” Bishop Riev commands. The guards push Knoll along, and have to catch him when he almost stumbles. The food was... meagre, to say the least, and Knoll has nowhere near the strength he would like. He’s walked out of the castle keep, and forced amongst the army. For all that Knoll no longer wears chains around his hands, he still feels as if he does, and that does not abate when he is made to kneel before Lyon.

“Your execution has been stayed,” Lyon announces, and his eyes are just as maniacal as the Emperor’s had been.

Knoll takes to the sands of Jehanna, General Valter somewhere behind him. The sands shift restlessly beneath Knoll’s feet; a sandstorm is coming. It comes just as they sack the palace, smoke and sand both clogging the air and making it nigh on impossible to see. Knoll takes his chance and flees, slipping down dunes and all but crawling to escape his Prince.

And then there is Prince Ephraim again, his face marred with anguish and disbelief, and he spares Knoll again. He and his army run down two of Lyon’s new generals, but it is too late. They find Queen Ismaire and fair Princess Eirika laid out on the sand beside the burning castle. Prince Innes meets Prince Ephraim’s gaze and shakes his head, and Knoll decides this cannot go on.

He steals a horse, and rides back to Grado keep. The tome is where he left it, wedged between a treatise on the Carcino grain market and a collection of essays about Jehannan farming techniques.

When he speaks the words within the tome, he has too little energy to offer to the spell; it takes the lives of all those nearby instead – the mice and rats, the birds outside, and a poor haphazard shaman reading only a few stacks away.

The third time begins like the second; the Emperor dies before Lyon can save him, and the Demon King takes Lyon as a host. Again, Knoll is imprisoned, but this time Knoll escapes. He escapes and swears fealty and loyalty to Lyon and is allowed, for however brief a time, to remain by Lyon’s side. But Riev grows suspicious, and by the time Ephraim’s army marches on the keep, Knoll is no longer trusted.

“You will guard the throne room,” Riev orders, “and let none face the Emperor.”

Knoll bows his head and acquiesces, but when Prince Ephraim appears, Knoll finds he cannot fight him. The Emperor does not make a single sound when he dies, and that is perhaps the worst thing of it all. They ride to Jehanna afterwards, and find Princess Eirika alive. She bears sad news – the death of Queen Ismaire at the hands of General Caellach – but they still have hope.

It is not until they start their journey into Rausten that Prince Ephraim starts to change. Lyon appears before them, and he taunts them – perhaps it is less taunting and more confessing, when it comes to Prince Ephraim. And though the Prince remains the good and just person Knoll recalls, he cannot stay as such when they get to Darkling Woods.

The Manakete girl begs Prince Ephraim not to leave her side, and Princess Eirika’s cries join her, but that does not stop him.

When they fight the Demon King in Lyon, Prince Ephraim stands beside him, and Knoll- Knoll _hopes_.

But all his hope is for nothing; Princess Eirika cuts past her brother – though neither will raise their weapons to each other – and buries her sword in Lyon’s chest. She seals the Demon King in Rausten’s Stone, and leads her army against the demon’s body.

Knoll pauses before he follows – Prince Ephraim kneels over Lyon’s body. He sheds no tears, but the grief is plain to see on his face.

“Prince Ephraim?” Knoll asks, but the Prince just shakes his head.

They win a hollow victory, and Knoll thinks that perhaps he should just let it be, for this is better than those times previous. But Prince Ephraim is distant and quiet, and no fit King for his kingdom – and as well, Princess Eirika’s faith in her brother is intolerably shaken and Knoll finds he cannot so dismiss them anymore.

So he recites the tome’s words again, watches as the page eats itself up and the darkness takes him back to the library.

Lyon reaches the Emperor before his death, and this time, he is not cast down the cold, hard steps. Instead, the Emperor eyes Lyon appreciatively and says, “Well done, boy.” Neither of them notice Knoll at all, and when the Emperor sweeps out, Lyon follows mutely in his wake. He does not speak out at the Emperor’s first mention of war, does not say a word when the Emperor sanctions three new generals – and even when the Emperor talks of destroying Renais, Lyon says nothing.

In fact, he speaks so little Knoll begins to worry, and then they march on Renais and King Fado falls – the Emperor impales him and has his body tossed outside for the birds. Only then does Lyon react; he sneaks out from under his father’s gaze, and he burns King Fado’s body that same night. Knoll offers what comfort he can, but it is not _his_ name Lyon murmurs late at night, it is not _his_ name Lyon cries for, it is not _him_ Lyon wants.

They return to Grado – narrowly missing, Knoll suspects, Prince Ephraim and Princess Eirika – and the Emperor makes elaborate plans for the future. The destruction of Frelia’s Stone is easily accomplished, and he sets Caellach to march on Jehanna while Glen and Valter search for the twins. It’s only then that Lyon speaks out – “Don’t hurt them,” he says, “please.” The Emperor and General Valter both sneer, but General Glen nods and bows to Lyon.

After a short time, the Emperor makes plans to march to Rausten, and that is when Knoll allows himself to hope.

“You will be in command here, boy,” the Emperor commands, and Lyon nods to his father before he scurries away.

 _Perhaps this time_ , Knoll thinks.

“Please, sire,” Knoll begs, when Prince Ephraim is in the halls of the keep, “you do not have to fight him.”

Lyon simply shakes his head and looks at Knoll sadly. “This was all my fault.”

When Prince Ephraim finally arrives, and when he does not immediately step forward to fight Lyon, Knoll can finally see why Lyon adores him so. Prince Ephraim is a good prince, a good man, and he would spare an enemy for the friend he used to be.

But Lyon thwarts them both – he leans into Ephraim’s lance, and says, “I’m sorry, so sorry, it was all my fault.”

And there’s no question of continuing after that, not with Lyon’s blood still splashed fresh upon the throne room floor, so it is a matter of minutes before Knoll goes back again, and he’ll keep on going back until Lyon _lives_ , he has to _live_ -

Princess L’Arachel suggests that the Stones might save Lyon, but it’s too late in this timeline; Grado, Frelia and Jehanna’s Stones are lost already, and Renais’ soon will be as well. So Knoll casts the spell again, and this time he lets Lyon do as he pleases – he goes on ahead of all the armies, and he steals Frelia’s Stone from the Tower where it rests, slipping and out like a shadow, before he heads on to Jehanna. There it is more difficult, and he is forced to fight, but soon it is done as well, and he has two Stones hidden in his robes. By this time Grado is aware of what he is doing – Renais has fallen to the Emperor, and the twins fled.

Knoll makes his way north after Jehanna, and wends his way to Rausten keep. There he waits, listening to the people as the war progresses, as Grado falls and Renais is retaken, as the army begins the march north to Rausten. The people speak of the Emperor’s death, of beautiful Queen Ismaire being spirited away, of the triumphant return of the twins to Renais. They do not speak of Lyon at all, and then he appears in Rausten.

And oh, he is incandescent with fury, beautiful with it, but Rausten stands firm even as they look away – however briefly – from their temple. It is oh so easy to slip inside, and take it, and even easier to escape back out and to the south. He meets the approaching army – Princess Eirika and Prince Ephraim at its head, riding horses the like of which Knoll has never seen before. And, he learns, they have their Stone still with them.

And here is hope again, so much it makes Knoll quake with it, but he dare not approach the army. Instead, he has to follow far behind, and watch as they take the battle to Darkling Woods once again – and there is Lyon, consumed by darkness and evil and Knoll-

Knoll is too late.

Even with three Stones hidden in his robes, and the fourth held close to Prince Ephraim’s side. The Demon King flees Lyon’s body and goes to its own, and then it is all they can to do contain it. All Knoll can do to flee back in time.

He tries again. Collects three Stones and takes them to Prince Ephraim, and watches as Lyon whispers words of love to him as he crushes each Stone in turn. He tries again, steals three and hides in Darkling Woods, until Lyon appears there. He starts to re-bind the Demon King and is cut down, the Stones dashed on the floor and Riev’s cackles echoing in the hall. He tries again, and is caught in Frelia, imprisoned and kept prisoner until darkness spreads across the land, and only then can Knoll recast the spell.

The tome grows thin. A handful of pages left, and Knoll is no closer to success.

This time, he allows events to play out as they will. The Emperor dies, and is brought back. Knoll is imprisoned, and the Stones are destroyed, each in their turn. Knoll is freed by righteous Ephraim, and reveals what he will – they save Princess Eirika on the sands of Jehanna, and remove Orson from the throne of Renais. The Stone of Renais is still shattered by Lyon’s hands, but they retain the Stone of Rausten and when at last Prince Ephraim fights Lyon, he wins and they reseal the Demon King.

Yet still, Lyon lies dead upon the floor.

And again, Lyon lies dead upon the floor.

And again, Lyon lies dead upon the floor.

And finally, Knoll can bear it no more – he _takes_ the Stone from Lyon’s hands, and though the spell is already cast it is soon enough to transfer hosts.

The last thing Knoll sees truly, is Lyon’s horrified face, as Knoll becomes the Demon King’s vessel for the first – and last – time.


End file.
